Subscription Improvements
Individual Accounts
We are revamping our individual subscription tiers beginning January 1st, 2021. Don’t panic – all existing users will be grandfathered in their existing tier unless they want to switch. We want to give the community a heads up and explain the reasoning behind for our decision making. Team accounts will be unaffected by these changes.
CalTopo’s subscription plans predate the app by a few years, and with the app now well-evolved, we decided it’s time to revisit them. Our goals are 1) provide a mobile-focused pricing level, 2) re-align several features with particularly high support costs, and 3) simplify the levels by focusing on feature availability rather than units like maximum PDF size.
The biggest change is that our basic level will be replaced by a new mobile-focused subscription, at the same price of $20/year. Google Earth integration and larger PDFs are moving to pro subscriptions, but in exchange you get full-resolution offline downloads of all non-premium layers, including satellite imagery.
Another major change is that all “live” satellite imagery including GOES and MODIS will become pro-only alongside Sentinel. We launched the GOES layer in a hurry during fire season, and since then it’s become clear that the layer will require significant ongoing processing costs that make it unsustainable to offer for free.
On the flip side, higher-resolution elevation profiles will become a free feature. CalTopo elevation profiles are currently limited to 300 points for free users, which leads to understating the gain/loss on long routes. With the rollout of a global elevation dataset, we no longer need to rely on third party elevation data, and will be removing this limit and providing more accurate elevation profiles to all users.
Revised plans:
Mobile ($20/year):
- Unlimited private maps
- Offline layers
Pro ($50/year):
- Premium layers (currently parcel data + live satellite)
- Improved printing (larger and higher resolution PDFs)
- Map layers in Google Earth
- Import Geospatial PDF map sheets
- Export MBTiles files
- Export elevation profiles
Desktop ($100/year):
- Desktop app
- WMS / WMTS tile access
- Import MapBox tilesets
- 8′ briefing maps
- Custom MapBuilder Layers
First Responders
Many first responders don’t realize that the first responder accounts are currently slightly different. Moving forward we will be doing away with the different first responder levels. We will continue to offer a robust free upgrade for verified first responders as well as a 50% discount on pro and desktop subscriptions. Our team account offerings remain unchanged.
Free first responder accounts will include:
- Private maps
- Improved printing
- CalTopo map layers in Google Earth
- Import Geospatial PDF map sheets
- MapBuilder Topo offline downloads in the app